As e-bikes proliferate, so do lethal fires blamed on exploding lithium-ion batteries

NEW YORK — The explosion early on a June morning ignited a blaze that engulfed a New York Metropolis store full of motorized bicycles and their unstable lithium-ion batteries. Billowing smoke shortly killed 4 individuals asleep in residences above the burning retailer.

Because the ubiquity of e-bikes has grown, so has the frequency of fires and deaths blamed on the batteries that energy them — prompting a marketing campaign to determine rules on how the batteries are manufactured, offered, reconditioned, charged and saved.

Client advocates and hearth departments, significantly in New York Metropolis, are urging the U.S. Client Product Security Fee to determine obligatory security requirements and confiscate noncompliant imports once they arrive on the border or transport ports, so unsafe e-bikes and poorly manufactured batteries do not attain streets and endanger properties.

These aren’t typical fires, mentioned New York Metropolis Hearth Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. The batteries don’t smolder; they explode.

“The variety of hearth incidents has quickly elevated. Different cities throughout the nation have begun seeing these points as properly, and municipalities that aren’t but experiencing this phenomenon could also be going through related incidents sooner or later,” Kavanagh advised the fee Thursday at a discussion board centered on e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries.

“We have now reached a degree of disaster in New York Metropolis, with ion batteries now a prime reason for deadly fires in New York,” she advised commissioners.

With some 65,000 e-bikes zipping by means of its streets — greater than some other place within the U.S. — New York Metropolis is the epicenter of battery-related fires. There have been 100 such blazes to this point this 12 months, leading to 13 deaths, already greater than double the six fatalities final 12 months.

Nationally, there have been greater than 200 battery-related fires reported to the fee — an apparent undercount — from 39 states over the previous two years, together with 19 deaths blamed on so-called micromobility units that embody battery-powered scooters, bicycles and hoverboards.

New York’s two U.S. senators, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, launched laws final month that will set obligatory security requirements for e-bikes and the batteries that energy them.

As a result of obligatory requirements do not exist, Schumer mentioned, poorly made batteries have flooded the U.S., rising the danger of fires.

In lots of instances, authorities have been challenged to trace the supply of batteries from abroad sources, a lot of them purchased on-line or from aftermarket sellers.

Earlier this 12 months, New York Metropolis urgently enacted a sweeping package deal of native legal guidelines supposed to crack down on faulty batteries, together with a ban on the sale or rental of e-bikes and batteries that aren’t licensed as assembly security requirements by an unbiased product testing lab.

The brand new guidelines additionally outlaw tampering with batteries or promoting refurbished batteries made with lithium-ion cells scavenged from used items.

In the meantime, New York Metropolis officers additionally introduced that they had obtained a $25 million federal grant for e-bike charging stations throughout town, which hearth marshals hope will cut back the danger of fires.

“After they fail, they fail fairly spectacularly,” Kavanagh mentioned in interview final week. “As soon as considered one of these ignites, there’s a big quantity of fireplace, usually a lot in order that the particular person of their dwelling can’t get out and the firefighters can’t get in to get them.”

Such was the case in April when two siblings, a 7-year-old boy and his 19-year-old sister, died when a scooter battery ignited a fireplace in Queens.

Due to the fireplace hazard, some residential buildings have banned e-bikes. Final summer time, the New York Metropolis Housing Authority sought to ban tenants in all of its 335 developments from protecting or charging e-vehicles of their items, solely to again down a couple of months later after protests from supply employees.

Use of motorized bicycles grew dramatically within the metropolis throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as homebound individuals turned extra to meals supply employees for meals and groceries.

With the rash of fires, supply employees like Lizandro Lopez say they’re now extra aware about precautions.

“As quickly because the battery is charged, I disconnect it. You shouldn’t go away it charging for too lengthy,” Lopez mentioned in Spanish, “as a result of in case you go away it on there too lengthy, that’s when you’ll be able to trigger a fireplace.”

Los Deliveristas Unidos, which represents app-based supply employees within the New York space, estimates that fewer than 10% of e-bikes offered within the metropolis have been deemed secure by a third-party evaluator, corresponding to UL Options, a product testing firm that certifies security compliance for a bunch {of electrical} merchandise, together with Christmas lights and televisions.

E-bike batteries depend on the identical chemistry to generate energy because the lithium-ion batteries in cellphones, laptops and most electrical automobiles — merchandise that have been initially vulnerable to overheating.

Tighter rules, security requirements and compliance testing drastically decreased the danger of fires in such units, in line with Robert Slone, the senior vp and chief scientist for UL Options.

The identical can occur with e-bike batteries, he mentioned, if they’re made to adjust to established security requirements. One function most of those batteries lack is the flexibility to routinely shut off whereas charging to stop overheating.

“We simply must make them secure, and there’s a approach to make them secure by means of testing and certification,” Slone mentioned, “given the historical past that we’ve seen by way of fires and accidents and sadly, deaths as properly — not simply in New York, however throughout the nation and around the globe.”

In London, the fireplace brigade says lithium batteries are town’s quickest rising hearth danger, with one hearth erupting about each two days. Final 12 months, there have been a complete of 116 fires involving e-bikes and e-scooters. No less than one demise has been attributed this 12 months to an overheated battery.

In San Francisco, there have been not less than 21 battery fires to this point this 12 months — in contrast with simply 13 battery-related fires in 2017, in line with an evaluation by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Final 12 months, some 1.1 million e-bikes have been imported into the U.S., in line with the Gentle Electrical Automobile Affiliation, an trade group. In 2021, greater than 880,000 e-bikes got here into the nation — about double from the 12 months earlier than and triple the quantity in 2019.

Lots of the batteries now on the highway are aftermarket merchandise which might be cheaply made and widespread with supply employees due to their decrease costs.

“However that product is so low cost as a result of it hasn’t gone by means of these design and testing. … It doesn’t meet a regular, in order that’s why they’re cheap,” mentioned Matt Moore, the overall and coverage council for the PeopleForBikes Coalition, which may also participate within the discussion board. “Even when there was a regulation, there’ll nonetheless be the flexibility of international sellers and producers to ship these merchandise into the USA.”

___

Related Press video journalist Ted Shaffrey and video producer Vanessa A. Alvarez contributed to this report.